Market Rejection Isn't Personal.

I was on a YouTube binge the other night and stumbled on the story of how Fujifilm completely reinvented itself — from a company generating the bulk of its operating profits from the sale of photo film stock to one that now thrives as a self-proclaimed “total healthcare company.”

I knew about the Fuji/Kodak rivalry from my time working as an executive in the early 2000s. After leaving the corporate world in 2005 to pursue a career as a wildlife cinematographer, my focus shifted from the block and tackle of big business to the ebb and flow of the ocean and the challenges of documenting the natural world.

In recent years, I found myself drawn back to the Fuji Universe for different reasons. A few years ago, I invested in their phenomenal GFX medium-format camera system for my stills projects, and just recently bought a small street style X-E5 Fujifilm camera to have as my EDC (Every Day Carry).

While watching YouTube videos on the X-E5, the algorithm served me up a short documentary on the story of Fjifilm’s epic pivot after being digitally disrupted, and it made me love my camera and the FujiFilm brand even more!

When digital disruption hit in the early 2000s, Fuji’s CEO Shigetaka Komori realised that while the demand for photofilm was plummeting due to the emergence of digital cameras and smartphones, the technical know-how which underpinned its creation remained relevant. FujiFilm’s mastery of chemical engineering — thousands of compounds, precise coatings, collagen stabilisation — was second to none. It just needed to be focused on solving another customer problem.

So rather than remaining deeply attached to their most successful product, as Kodak did, they explored alternative value propositions deeply grounded in their existing business philosophy, core values and unique competencies.

And this was the part I never knew, and would never have guessed.

A significant component of their epic pivot, executed over 10 years, involved the creation and marketing of healthcare products. FujiFilm literally went from emulsions to medicine, from preserving memories on film to maintaining skin and life itself.

Kodak, on the other hand, failed to pivot significantly. While the business is still operating, it's a shadow of its former self, still covering under the ever-present threat of bankruptcy.

As solopreneurs, creatives, and filmmakers, we go through similar cycles. Sometimes the project, platform, or offer that defined us and gave us an identity starts to lose favour in the market.

The temptation is to take it personally. But as a general rule, it’s not you that’s no longer viable; it’s the product or offering that you are bringing to market that is no longer relevant.

My key takeaway from the FujiFilm case study is that when you pivot, you need to ground yourself in your unique value system and the core skillsets that drove your previous success.

Think laterally and expansively as to how you can use that value system and core skillset to help others, potentially in very different markets. And don’t obsess about the product that has lost relevance, as Kodak did; see it as an older expression of your being that no longer deserves attention.

Life isn’t about finally “becoming” what you were meant to be. It’s about continuously becoming — adapting, reframing, and evolving who you serve and how, while staying true to your core values and what fires your passion.